Why do you park hop?

[TDC Nala]

I use it constantly, but I've been an annual passholder for many years, so I'm used to it now.

 

[HWY20RIDE4MYSON]

We PH because parks like AK and Epcot just are not Full Day Parks for us. We will hit Epcot in the morning go back to redort for a couple hours and then go to MK for the evening. I guess it depends, i could see where staying off site and PH would be a lil more work.

 

[AJ1983]

For us, we park hop to avoid wasting potential park time,and to avoid crowds. Like a PP said, if we go to AK, we are done by about 2 pm, so unless we have PH, we can either stay at AK for another 3 hours just for the sake of it, or we have nothing to do for the rest of the day. Last year, we did AK with Morning Magic Hours from 8-12:30, back to the hotel to refresh, then went to MK from about 3-10. We also used it after we did Morning Magic Hour at MK-around 3:00 it was REALLY crowded, so we opted to head over to EPCOT, which was open until 9 and way less crowded.

We found it very easy and relatively quick to hop, but to be fair, it is just two adults with no children.

 

[richmo]

In a trip of 7 days or so, we probably park hop about 2 times.

Usually on AK day, we finish up mid-afternoon and go to another park.

Sometimes, regardless of which park we've been in during the day, we may go to Epcot for dinner.

If weather has changed our plans or cancelled a nighttime show, we might get back to that park on another day.

 

[Acedink]

We get them even if we don't always use them. If we hit Epcot, and maybe don't get on everything we wanted, we'll hit it the next morning, ride what we want, and then head to MK.

Or on days when AK closes fairly early, we'll stay till close, and then hit MK for nights.

 

[tinkerbella16]

We have never NOT gotten hoppers because we love the freedom of doing any park, on any day as we wish. We also like all different restaurants so if we are in AK in the morning, we can have dinner at Epcot that evening. Or DHS in the morning, we can go to MK at night for EMH. We are not tied down to just that park. It really makes for a better vacation for us. Park hopping has been the way we do WDW since I can remember and I cannot imagine doing it any different.

 

[asmit4]

1. hit a park in the am, nap, hit another park in the PM

2. hit EMH in the am - leave when the park gets crowded (by 1pm) and hit up another park in the pm

3. ADR in park in the am, but want to see fireworks in another park in the PM

 

[richmo]

One thing to remember is that you could always upgrade your tickets.

So, if you think you *probably* won't park hop, you could buy tickets without park hopping. Then, while there, if you decide you would like to park hop, you could always hit a Guest Relations and upgrade the tickets. The price would be the same as if you added park hopping when you originally bought them. (Probably best to do that after at least one gate entrance, in case there was a price increase). Only drawback is time spent at Guest Relations, which hopefully won't be long...

 

[ForeverAlice]

We only do half days at animal kingdom hs epcot- I am a MK junkie I have to be there every day at least half day on vacay and the fam luckily agrees. Hopper allows us to see the other parks but MK every day or night too.

 

[coconutprincess]

I like the flexibility. We also often go to Epcot for dinner

 

[disneyfan55]

One thing to remember is that you could always upgrade your tickets.

So, if you think you *probably* won't park hop, you could buy tickets without park hopping. Then, while there, if you decide you would like to park hop, you could always hit a Guest Relations and upgrade the tickets. The price would be the same as if you added park hopping when you originally bought them. (Probably best to do that after at least one gate entrance, in case there was a price increase). Only drawback is time spent at Guest Relations, which hopefully won't be long...

THis is exactly what I would do if unsure. The last times we went we really did just go to one park but had AP so included.

 

[Alesia]

One thing to remember is that you could always upgrade your tickets.

So, if you think you *probably* won't park hop, you could buy tickets without park hopping. Then, while there, if you decide you would like to park hop, you could always hit a Guest Relations and upgrade the tickets. The price would be the same as if you added park hopping when you originally bought them. (Probably best to do that after at least one gate entrance, in case there was a price increase). Only drawback is time spent at Guest Relations, which hopefully won't be long...

THis is exactly what I would do if unsure. The last times we went we really did just go to one park but had AP so included.

I have already pointed this out, but it case it got lost in the shuffle:

It is not true that you can always upgrade the tickets later. All upgrades must be completed within 14 days of the first use. So while waiting to upgrade is good advice for expiring tickets, it is not necessarily good advice for non-expiring tickets (which is what the OP was asking about.)

 

[W.E.D.]

We have hopped for as long as I can remember. We too like the flexibility it gives us. DW and I are huge EPCOT fans, and when we're on vacation we like to have some nice dinners. We typically hit one of the other parks in the morning, go back to the resort for some pool time or a nap, and then hop over to EPCOT for some shopping and dinner at WS.

 

[DisneyFive]

Also, crowds are usually the lightest on 'party days' at MK (MNSSHP and MVMCP). We love going to the parks on those days, but the park closes at 7 pm. It's nice to be able to hop over to another park after closing if we're feeling up to it

We got hoppers for a couple of reasons:

2) So that I could book a hard-to-find ADR any day of our trip and know that we weren't locked into that park for the entire day because of it.

3) To hop to a park that's open a few hours later than the one we're currently in.

These are all great reasons. Love the idea of hitting MK on a MNSSHP day, and then spending the evening at another park! We've been to Disney the last four years during MNSSHP and have never done park hoppers. This is a great way to use them.

Rgarding the ADR's, this is also great. Some ADR's really do lock you into being at a certain park that day. Park hoppers give you that flexibility to break that.

Also, it appears by some of the reply's that some folks are under the impression that park hoppers are needed to get back into the same park, on the same day, if you leave. This is not true, you can exit and enter the same park on the same day as many times as you want, even with a standard ticket.

Dan

 

[Imagineer5]

Many reasons to park hop:

My long standing main reason is for meal times in various parks (generally dinner at EPCOT, or on our upcoming trip, dinner at BoG)

Another reason would be for DHS/AK which to me are morning parks, and I am generally done by lunchtime. After a break, you can hop over to another park.

My newest reason we hopped the last trip was to start out at an easy to tour park w/o FP (AK, EPCOT) and then hop over to a harder to tour park w/o FP (MK) and already have 3 FP's scheduled there.

 

[seelyt2]

We leave the parks in the afternoon to take a break, but we generally use the hoppers to take advantage of the nighttime firework shows at the different parks which are picked (by us) according to park hours and expected crowds. The chosen nighttime entertainment doesn't always coincide with what we choose for the morning. We just love the flexibility of it all.

 

[whitney37354]

We park hop for flexibility. Next trip we're taking two grandmothers so we decided to just do one park per day and stay as long as we can at each park.